The Day After: One Blogger's Opinion

[Warning: In the following, the author of this blog shares his political views. This post has nothing to do with cinema. Well, almost nothing ...]

November 3, 2004


November 5, 2008


This is a contribution to the Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon. Cinematic responses encouraged ...

Nixon: A Ghost Story

[For the Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon.]

Oliver Stone’s Nixon has all the earmarks (allusion intended) of a political epic. Of course it does. It’s the story of the President of the United States, told primarily out of the White House and drawing upon landmark moments in American history. As a time capsule it works marvelously, providing younger viewers with a sense of both the Nixon presidency and the era before it that shaped Richard Milhous Nixon in his rise to power.

Yet for all its political provocation – perhaps the most notorious example of which is the suggestion that Nixon mingled with the Dallas financiers of the John F Kennedy assassination – Nixon is no more a political yarn than is William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. First and foremost, Nixon is personal tragedy, something Roger Ebert identified in his original review when he wrote: “here, again, is a ruler destroyed by his fatal flaws.”

Like any key figure in a Shakespearean tragedy, Stone’s Nixon (portrayed by Anthony Hopkins) reaches for things beyond his grasp and suffers because of it. Even more Shakespearean: Nixon is haunted by ghosts. Over the course of a 190-minute film that’s as rough around the edges as it is bold, Nixon is haunted by four spirits – psychological specters so significant that even the president’s closest confidante, wife Pat, can detect them.

A writer first and a director second, Stone (working here with cinematographer Robert Richardson) is rarely celebrated for his visual compositions, and yet Nixon’s haunted moments make for some of the film’s most compelling scenes. Though in most cases the ghostly visitations are metaphorical imaginings, one could easily argue that these scenes mark the film at its most accurate.

For historical truth, we have encyclopedias. For emotional truth, we have art. Upon examining its moments of haunting, Nixon turns out to be less a political film than a ghost story.


The Father
The film’s first haunting is its most vague visitation and yet perhaps also the most psychologically significant. Sharing a private moment with his wife, Pat, Nixon expresses his disappointment over falling to John F Kennedy in the 1960 presidential race. Nixon hates to lose on principle, and the salt in his wound is the feeling that Kennedy played dirty to win. Moments earlier, an adviser discourages Nixon from challenging the tight election results saying that Kennedy “stole it fair and square.” That’s politics.

Lying in Pat’s arms, Nixon provides the first glimpse at what drives him: not ego, not a thirst for power, not a desire for glory, but instead the memories of a father who scratched and clawed all his life and never got anywhere. (“When you quit struggling, they’ve beaten you,” his father says in one of many flashbacks.) Nixon portrays its subject as both proud of his father’s tenacity and ashamed of what little there was to show for it.

Looking exhausted, Nixon says to his wife: “Maybe I should get out of the game. What do you think, Buddy? Go back to being a lawyer. End up with something solid, some money at the end of the line.”

In response, Joan Allen’s Pat fights back tears. But in what is Allen’s finest moment, Pat can’t restrain a slight hopeful nod – a desperate prayer that her husband’s tragic fate can be altered. The gesture suggests that Pat sees the ghost of Nixon’s father more clearly than he does. She knows that her husband has fated himself to work just as hard for rewards just as slight. Nixon can never quit, because his father never did.

Nixon continues: “You know, I keep thinking of my old man tonight. He was a failure, too. You know how much money he had in the bank when he died? Nothing. He was so damned honest. But I miss him. I miss him a hell of a lot.”

This scene, just over 20 minutes into the film, announces Stone’s intent to try and understand the broken soul that drove the controversial figure. It’s here that Nixon begins to see honesty as an obstacle and identifies surrender as a crime. He can only live up to his father’s work ethic by failing (only to try again), and yet he can only live up to his father’s memory by succeeding. Thus, Nixon is doomed.



The Mother
If Nixon’s work ethic came from his father, Stone’s film suggests that the president’s sense of right and wrong was instilled by his religious mother. Early childhood memories show Hannah Nixon (Mary Steenburgen), a devout Quaker, interrogating her son about a cigarette that was procured surreptitiously behind the family store. Once her son confesses to the crime, Hannah agrees to make his sin their little secret. But despite escaping a painful trip to the woodshed with his father, Nixon is still visibly shaken. He may have avoided punishment, but he has suffered the sting of his seemingly omniscient mother’s disappointment.

Thus it’s only appropriate that late in Stone’s film, when we find the president listening to the famous Oval Office audio recordings that implicate him in the Watergate burglaries, Nixon is haunted by his mother. Of the four ghostly visitations in Stone’s film, this is the most overt. As a drunken Pat enters the room, chastising her husband for his lack of moral fortitude (“I know how ugly you can be. You’re capable of anything.”), an equally intoxicated Nixon spots a hallucinatory vision of his mother sitting a chair below the gaze of a judgmental Abraham Lincoln portrait.

Initially, Hannah Nixon’s apparition doesn’t speak. Her disapproval is voiced by Pat, who compares the tapes to illicit “love letters” and hypothesizes that since Nixon didn’t go the distance with his crime by destroying the tapes altogether, he must secretly want his sins to be exposed. Nixon objects: “They were for me. They’re mine.” Pat, channeling the disappointment of Nixon’s mother, responds: “They’re not yours. They are you.”

It’s here that Nixon’s tragedy reaches its apex: the audio recordings that an insecure president thought necessary to secure his historical glory will instead serve as a wrecking ball to his accomplishments. Meanwhile, Stone’s film establishes that though the figure of Tricky Dick seemed to lack a conscience, Nixon the man indeed suffered the knowledge of his transgressions. It was his private burden.




The Holy Spirit
Predictably, given that Stone was coming off of JFK and Natural Born Killers, Nixon was immediately met with controversy in regard to the film’s factuality (or lack thereof) and potential agenda. More than a decade later, the hoopla of 1995 seems both justified and overblown. For evidence of the latter, consider that Nixon’s most surreal scene is indeed based on real life: a predawn visit to the Lincoln Memorial by Nixon and his personal assistant Manolo Sanchez in May of 1970.

According to various historical accounts, Nixon made the unplanned trip in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings because he felt the Lincoln Memorial was a spiritual place, especially at night. But Stone makes the visit symbolic of a different kind of spiritualism: Lincoln was one of Nixon’s ghosts. Much like the 43rd president, the 37th president felt that as commander in chief during unpopular and costly wars he shared a common bond with the 16th president. The difference between Nixon and George W Bush, however, is that Nixon was painfully aware that he lacked the reverence enjoyed by Lincoln.

In the film, as Nixon climbs the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the view of the Washington Memorial behind him is replaced by war footage: bombs falling on Cambodia. It’s as if current events force Nixon to seek guidance from Lincoln, who sits magnificently and yet illusively as if he were the Wizard of Oz.

Dwarfed by Lincoln’s statue, Nixon is revealed to be too small, too weak to guide America through its storm. As a protesting student puts it soon after, Nixon is “powerless.” The president objects with a punctuated, “No!” that reverberates off the marble. But it’s a denial Nixon doesn’t fully believe. Inside, Nixon is haunted by the fear that next to the great presidents he doesn’t measure up.




The Martyr
Lincoln wasn’t the only former president to haunt Nixon. As portrayed in Stone’s film, Nixon saw the ghost of John F Kennedy everywhere he looked. Thus there are many moments when Kennedy’s spirit seems to loom over the president, but only one of them is filmed as a ghostly visitation.

It’s a scene set up brilliantly by another midway through the film when Nixon shares a private moment with his aide, Sanchez, in the White House kitchen. As a discussion of Cuba turns to comments on Kennedy, Nixon asks: “You didn’t think he was a hero, did you?”

“He was a politician,” Sanchez replies diplomatically. “You cry when he died?” Nixon inquires, seeming to know the answer. “Yes,” Sanchez admits sheepishly. “Why?” the president demands. “I don’t know,” Sanchez says. “He made me see the stars.”

As portrayed by Stone, Nixon’s inferiority complex in relation to Kennedy is as intense as it is hypocritical. On the one hand Nixon sees Kennedy in the same heavenly glow as the average American. JFK is the guy who had the “right clothes,” went to the “right school” and came from the “right family,” while Nixon didn’t. But on the other hand, Nixon is genuinely dumbfounded that he’ll never be so adored, that America will see him as nothing more than a crusty scab – an ugly necessity.

On that note, at the conclusion of the film, Nixon puts into words the sentiment that has already become clear. Looking up at Kennedy’s portrait hanging in the White House, he offers: “When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are.” Those two lines of dialogue encapsulate perfectly Nixon’s feelings of inadequacy and his penchant for self-loathing. They also make for what must be the film’s most iconic moment. And yet what’s all too easily overlooked is how Stone gets us to those lines.

Moments earlier, Nixon is seen bidding farewell to Henry Kissinger (Paul Sorvino) and Alexander Haig (Powers Boothe). He has signed his resignation. His presidency is over. The nightmare, one would guess, has ended. But as soon as Kissinger and Haig depart, the camera tracks from behind Nixon’s shoulder to a frontal view. In the process, Kennedy’s portrait is revealed in the background behind Nixon as if it were Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees waiting to strike. Hopkins’ Nixon reacts to it in kind, jolting with recognition as if he feels Kennedy’s breath on the back of his neck before he turns to face him with his own eyes.

Nixon’s presidency might be over, but for the man the nightmare never ends. These ghosts will always be with him.

More Of The Same: Changeling

In 1928, a single mother returns from work to find that her 9-year-old son is gone from their California home. Vanished without a trace. The mother, Christine Collins, contacts the Los Angeles Police Department, which uncovers no clues related to the boy’s disappearance for months, until incredibly the boy is reported found in Illinois. As quickly as this news spreads, the L.A. press assembles at the train station to witness the mother and child reunion. The LAPD shows up too, eager for some positive publicity. But when the boy steps off the train, Christine takes one look at him and says disappointedly but confidently, “That’s not my son.” And it isn’t. Of course it isn’t. A mother would know.

I have just described for you the first 30 or so minutes of Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood, and so in theory I have given nothing significant away. Per J Michael Straczynski’s screenplay, inspired by real-life events, the above summary isn’t a story itself but the launching point of one – the seed of something larger. Only that seed never blooms. Of course it doesn’t. Because in its opening act, Changeling is as dramatic and as heart-wrenching as it ever will be. A mother loses her child. He is never found again. And next to this, the rest is just distraction, obstacles between us and the obvious. Sure, Christine will be put through a physical and emotional hell. And clues explaining why and how her son disappeared will be unearthed. And there will be a few surprises. But in the end we will end up in the exact same place. And we’ll know this. But how about the people behind the movie?

Changeling is a quasi-mystery that makes the mistake of supposing that “can” and “when” are equally dramatic concepts. They aren’t. Compelling films work with “can.” Can the boxer win the fight? Can the astronauts make it home? Can the man make it off the island? Even if convention (Rocky), history (Apollo 13) or a film’s trailers (Cast Away) hint at the answers to such questions, a successful screenplay creates doubt. Changeling eliminates it. After the mystery boy arrives on the train, an image-conscious LAPD captain attempts to convince a flustered Christine that the child is in fact her son. But she doesn’t believe it. And we don’t believe it. And we don’t believe that the police captain believes it. And even if we tried to believe as much, that mystery is quashed only minutes later when Christine discovers that the boy posing as her son is 3 inches too short. Case closed. From here Changeling isn’t about “can” (Can Christine prove the stranger isn’t her son?), and so it becomes a film about “when,” as in: “When will everyone else realize what is overwhelmingly obvious?”

Watching it unfold is excruciating. Christine is played by Angelina Jolie, who mutes any Lara Croft sexuality behind blank, pained or confused expressions while Straczynski’s screenplay gives her character the Green Eggs and Ham treatment: Christine’s denials are the same, only her location changes. She insists that the boy isn’t Walter as soon as he steps off the train and she does so again later from the hospital for the criminally insane. She says he isn’t Walter when she talks to a preacher, and she says he isn’t Walter when she talks to her son’s teacher. She says he isn’t Walter when she’s in a courtroom witness chair. She says he isn’t Walter when she’s sitting anywhere! Meantime, an LAPD police captain played by Jeffrey Donovan responds with longwinded versions of “Is too!” so many times that I began to suspect that eventually he’d plug his ears, close his eyes and shout, “La-la-la-la-la…” whenever Christine arrived with new evidence.

Put together, these make for two one-dimensional performances in a film that plays the same note over and over again until the string snaps. About halfway through, Changeling tries to shift its dramatic tension onto the shoulders of another little boy, Sanford (Eddie Alderson), a runaway who has knowledge about poor Walter’s fate. Yet while Alderson’s performance connects, thanks in large part to a tremendous example of good listening by Michael Kelly as Detective Ybarra, this side plot does little more than fascinate us with its horrific historical factoids. Forgotten in the process, as if to underline its monotony, is Christine’s going-nowhere emotional journey. Eventually, after Changeling has gone a good 45 minutes longer than is necessary, Straczynski attempts to tie these threads together in dramatic harmony, but the link seems forced and historically dubious. And by then it’s too late anyway.

Even as it’s unfolding it’s clear that Changeling’s last hour is made up of stuff that in a better film would be left to the textual epilogue. For example: Why did we need to see the courtroom scene in which the already established was repeated one time more? And why did we need to see the arrest of Gordon Northcott, or his conviction, or his execution? Even if the latter was essential, did we really need to watch a shackled Northcutt shuffle down one staircase before shuffling up another to the gallows? The execution scenes of In Cold Blood and Capote move with greater haste, and in those pictures the emotions of the convicted are at the heart of the matter. Here? Not so much. As Northcott, Jason Butler Harner gives a performance so large that it suggests significance, but in truth the role is noting more than filler. Northcott sticks around long enough that Christine can visit him at San Quentin, allowing Straczynski to check off one more detail from the Wikipedia entry. It’s that kind of movie.

In its final act, Changeling goes out of its way to present Christine as a champion of motherhood and women’s rights in an era where women could be sent to a mental institution if the LAPD deemed them an inconvenience. But by making the LAPD into the villain, Stracyznski’s screenplay misses the point. Equally at fault was the general culture of the times, wherein Christine would ever feel pressured to take the imposter child home in the first place. Try as the film might to suggest otherwise, in actuality Christine is rescued by men as often as she is wronged by them. In the end, her acts of supposed heroism are refusing to pretend that a stranger is her son and refusing to plead insanity. It’s a pretty low bar. And for each scene in which Jolie screams, cries or snarls, there’s another in which Christine is allowed to do no more than sit there and look pretty like a good woman of the early 1930s.

And that she does. Christine is character we see a lot of without ever seeing into. This much is proven near the end of Changeling, when we find Christine listening to a radio broadcast of the Academy Awards, prancing about with glee over the thought of It Happened One Night upsetting Cleopatra for Best Picture. True enough, in the film’s opening scene Christine promises to take Walter to the movies, thus establishing her cinema-going habit. But glee isn’t something Christine had revealed to this point, and the final few minutes of the film isn’t the time to introduce a new facet to her limited personality. As Changeling ends with Eastwood’s own piano score and the clang of a streetcar in the distance, Christine walks off in classic movie-star fashion, with her head held high. It’s a triumphant conclusion, to be sure. And it renders Christine as foreign to us as that strange little boy who got off the train from Illinois.

Simple Minded: W.

In the run-up to the 2004 election, I remember watching a cable news show in which the Analyst of the Day pointed out how John Kerry’s campaign was going about things all wrong. In trying to unseat the incumbent, a challenger wins not by pointing out the incumbent’s mistakes, the analyst reasoned, but by selling a vision for the future. After four years under George W Bush, Kerry’s tactic of pinning blame had no greater effect than listing for a wife the shortfalls of her husband. Bush’s inadequacies were known. If the electorate hadn’t grown tired of them already, there was nothing Kerry could say to change that. For better or worse, the American people knew Bush – all his strengths and weaknesses – like they knew their own family.

Four years later, after Kerry’s defeat, we now know Bush even better. Arguably too well. And it’s into this landscape that Oliver Stone releases W., a limited-scope biopic that charts the unforeseeable transformation of an aimless, hard-partying goof into a devout, determined Presidential goof. (Hey, some things never change.) It’s ripe material, especially for Stone, who is at his best when gnawing with rat-like fervency at the mythical historical touchstones of the past 50 years: the Vietnam War (Platoon and Born On The Fourth Of July), the assassination of John F Kennedy (JFK) and the political career of Richard Nixon (Nixon). That’s why it’s a disappointment to discover that W. is toothless, not because it fails to flog a president whose record-low approval ratings reflect his almost endless collection of failures, deceptions, insensitivities and gaffes, but because it fails to illuminate Bush’s persona beyond the obvious.

In that way, W. was a tall order, because Bush is hardly a man of depth. At the end of his second term, Bush seems more transparent to the American people than to himself, which is to say that if our president isn’t as dimwitted and disconnected as he appears, he’s at least ignorant (perhaps actively so) of how truly foolish he comes across. In that respect, Bush is not unlike the loudmouth at the party who draws laughs upon arriving and keeps telling jokes into the night long after the response has turned to groans. To its credit, W. underlines Bush’s criminal lack of self-awareness on at least three occasions: first when a post-grad Bush fails to recognize that it was his father pulling strings, and not his academic record, that gets him into Harvard Law; second when as a candidate for governor of Texas he suggests that his strategist Karl Rove (Toby Jones) is merely the wordsmith and not the idea man of the campaign; and third when President Bush tells Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), “I’m the decider,” despite immediate evidence to the contrary. In these moments, we get a glimpse of how Bush sees himself. The trouble is, it’s a view with which we’ve long been familiar.

Watching W., I experienced for the first time the “fatigue” factor often cited as a contributor to the modest box office earnings of Iraq-themed films like In The Valley Of Elah and Rendition. W. is full of old legends, old blunders, old Bushisms. For someone born this year, it might someday serve as a satisfactory primer on this president and these times. Right now, however, it feels like a rerun of a TV show that’s long past its prime. Perhaps with the exception of the way Stone’s picture portrays Bush’s resentment of his father – after years of being overshadowed by his brother Jeb – as a significant motivating force, W. fails to gain any sharper insight of its subject than could be attained by reading eight years worth of headlines in The Washington Post. Even worse, W. sometimes loses track of its subject altogether, as during the situation room meeting in which Cheney, Condoleezza Rice (Thandie Newton), Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn) and others sit arguing the merits of invading Iraq, while Bush sits by as a witness. True, Bush’s backseat approach during this crucial moment is a telling commentary on the man that’s both negative (not much of a decider) and backhandedly positive (demonstrating how a well-intending Bush was bamboozled by others who knew better; a conniver he wasn’t). But like Bush missing a turn on a walking tour of his Texas ranch, W. takes the long way around.

Bush is played by Josh Brolin, who delivers the goods in what is arguably the most challenging performance of his career, given the workload (he’s in almost every scene) and the oft-imitated mannerisms of the subject. Gracefully transitioning between youthful party animal and grizzled politician, Brolin weaves a common swaggering thread throughout in what is an astonishingly reserved portrayal. In fact, it’s too reserved. As soon as you credit Stone and Brolin for not drawing upon Bush’s blooper-reel moments to turn the man into a caricature, you must also wonder why they chose to play down-the-middle a man who couldn’t walk a straight line if his life depended on it. When Jon Stewart responded to footage of Bush ‘raising the roof’ during the Olympics by quipping that our president is “adorable” and should be the country’s “mascot,” he hit the nail on the head. In contrast, Brolin’s Bush, as accurate as it is scene to scene, feels less cartoonish than Bush himself. In hindsight, Stone would have been better off casting Will Ferrell in the lead and making W. an epic tragic-comedy capable of producing enough laughter to blow the doors off your local multiplex.

As it is, W. barely inspires chuckles. Or gasps. Or sighs. Or fits of rage. And that’s the biggest letdown of all, because W. is proof that Stone has lost his edge. Films like JFK and Nixon are rife with the imperfections of a brawler who swings nothing but haymakers and awkwardly misses at least a third of the time. Stone’s films have never been elegant, and that is their joy. At their most compelling, Stone’s great films resemble their director: bold, opinionated and wearing an untamable 5 o’clock shadow. Until now, the director’s political films have inspired and offended in equal measure. That is their charm. But with W., against all expectation, against all explanation, Stone plays it safe. Historical accuracy might have been improved in the process, but the emotional truth was lost. It’s telling that two print ads for the film showing Brolin’s Bush in the Oval Office – chin resting on his hands in childlike contemplation in one, boots on the desk in Texas arrogance in the other – are more biting than the movie itself. Stone’s film is almost painfully correct, but it marks the moment when one of cinema’s best provocateurs lost his voice. W. is nothing more than empty gesturing.

Queue It Up: The Descent

[Queue It Up is supposed to be for mostly overlooked films. I’m not sure this one classifies. And then again it does, because I nearly overlooked it myself. The blood-and-guts genre just ain’t my tub of popcorn. That said, horror fans are likely to tell me that this movie isn’t horror at all, and maybe that’s the point. Perhaps this is a bridge film. In any case, it went down as one of my top five films of 2006. In celebration of Halloween, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

When you grow up on the West Coast like I did, you tend to view the 2,000-plus-mile Appalachian Range as a parade of cute, wee bluffs. Out toward the Pacific, we have the mighty Rocky Mountains, not to mention the slighter yet striking Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges. By comparison, the Appalachians aren’t just underwhelming, they’re, well, a bit sissy – the one series of undulations in a landscape so otherwise flat that without them someone standing on the hood of their car in New York could see all the way to Kansas.

That’s why I couldn’t help but elicit a tiny, politically-incorrect chuckle as I realized that The Descent’s all-girl fright-fest would unfold within the belly of America’s weak little sister of a mountain range; all too appropriate, I thought, for a movie void of men. But the joke, it turns out, was on me. Stuffed with action and bathed in blood, The Descent may be full of sisters, but it’s neither weak nor little. Instead it’s gory and ghastly and second to none. It’s also so packed with girl power that it made me think I might need an intravenous drip of estrogen just to survive it.

Lest I be misunderstood, I mean that as a compliment. The Descent tells the story of six female friends who gather together on the one-year anniversary of a tragedy to bond on a spelunking expedition in a remote part of Appalachia (so remote that it has a nearby cabin and a clearly well-used road, but never mind). They are led by the gung-ho Juno (Natalie Mendoza), who believes in safety but not maps, and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), an expert climber who does everything by the book. The rest of the girls aren’t quite so practiced, but they’re hardly novices. They strap into their harnesses and attach their descenders without effort, and none of them even thinks to complain about what a helmet will do to their hair.

Seasoned adventures, they take the plunge with gusto. Yet as soon as the girls rope down into the massive cave system, there’s a sense that their expedition won’t go as planned. Maybe because Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is still haunted by the deaths of her husband and young daughter and hears voices. Maybe because a flashlight reveals red scratches on the cave walls that make it appear as if someone before them tried to claw their way out. Maybe because there’s an obligatory surge of bats that startles the girls (and us) before exiting the cave in an embarrassingly pathetic CGI shot that takes special effects backward about 15 years. Maybe.

But for sure we know something will go wrong because of the way the movie begins, with Sarah’s husband dying in a car crash when a metal rod perforates his skull, sending blood and brain matter oozing out the back of the headrest. A scene like that is a promise. It says, “Get ready, folks, this movie is gonna get messy!” And it will. But not right away. Writer/director Neil Marshall believes in foreplay, and so for I-won’t-tell-you-how-long he just sets the mood of impending doom. The girls go deeper and deeper into the cave, and the claustrophobia and suspense increase in time. Whenever one of the girls turns a corner or reaches out into the darkness we wonder, “Is this it? Is this when it arrives?”

Which of course brings us to the question that the not-so-legendary band Faith No More asked so epically (and repetitively) in 1990: “What is it?” Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to know, but after a few near encounters the girls eventually come face-to-revolting-face with predatory creatures that climb the subterranean walls like spiders. Hairless and pasty in complexion, these mostly-humanesque dwellers of the dark look like the byproduct of Lord Of The Rings’ Gollum mating with Harry Potter’s Voldemort. Only less sexy.

Yet grotesque as they are, my first reaction upon getting a good peek at one of the creatures is that they aren’t much to look at. Not when you compare them to those classic creepy-crawlies from the Alien movies, which are all spine and tail and skull and teeth. Now those creatures leave an impression! But the demons of The Descent are memorable in their own right, not so much for their appearance but their implementation. Breaking away from the usually-accurate convention that says horror film thrills come from the anticipation of an encounter rather than the realization of one, Marshall lays all his cards on the table and says, “Let’s get it on.”

Once the monsters are revealed, the final act is non-stop action, a babalicious butt-kicking brouhaha. And this time it’s the encounters that thrill. Marshall is so confident in his girl-ghoul showdowns that sometimes he even warns us when the creatures are approaching. And still the movie terrifies! The Descent’s format succeeds because there’s something undeniably exciting about watching athletically-sexy girls kick ass. In the past, the horror genre has always been fond of female characters because – as extraordinary screamers who tend to undo their bras just before evil descends upon them – they make good prey. But that’s another rule that’s reversed in The Descent.

These chicks are fighters. They use their bare hands, rocks, pieces of bone and a few moves they might have picked up in self-defense classes. Were I not so busy covering my eyes at the punishment they inflict, I would have applauded regularly. Their tenacity is so inspirationally thrilling that at one point – maybe when Juno plunges her ice axe into the skull of one of the creatures – I actually thought, ‘If I had a daughter, I’d hope she’d grow up to be like one of these girls.’ No kidding!

But The Descent will hardly warm everyone’s cockles. In fact, I’m surprised it warmed mine. Given the nausea it creates, I wouldn’t recommend seeing it before eating, or after eating, or really at all. On principle, I have a hard time advocating a film in which one of the characters emulates Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now with a slow, steady rise out of a pool of blood. But that’s the nature of The Descent and there’s no way around it: one way in, one way out, lots of blood, sweat and cheers in between. Pretty much in that order. I couldn’t always watch, but I never closed my eyes. Well, almost never.

[“Queue It Up” is a series of sporadic recommendations of often overlooked movies for your Netflix queue.]

Debating Documentaries

At its simplest, Errol Morris’ documentary Standard Operating Procedure is an exploration of the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. Beyond that, though, it’s an examination of the reality – or lack thereof – of the filmed image. Some folks like to say the camera doesn’t lie, and that might be right. But the camera doesn't always tell the truth, either. And it was in that vein that Yours Truly, the opinionated host at The Cooler, began a friendly e-mail debate with Fox, the equally opinionated host of the feisty mostly-movies blog Tractor Facts.

The discussion began early this month, just before the release of Religulous, and it continued sporadically from there. Over the course of our exchanges, we debated the very nature of the documentary while touching on Religulous, Michael Moore, Ben Stein’s Expelled, Werner Herzog, The Fog Of War, The King Of Kong, Tarnation and more. Almost 5,000 words later, we felt that we’d explored some interesting topics … and that we’d barely scratched the surface.

A transcript follows …

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JB: Let’s get into this discussion by talking about Religulous, which hits theaters tomorrow. At this point, neither of us has seen the film, but judging by the trailer it appears to be a documentary in the Michael Moore style, which I suppose might be best characterized thusly: (1) more liberal than conservative, (2) at least as entertainment-minded as education-minded, (3) shiftily manipulative and (4) stunty, to coin a term. The movie is directed by Larry Charles, who also directed Borat, a comedy with elements of the Moore-esque documentary. I know you loath Borat, which – correct me if I’m wrong – you think is disingenuous, agenda-driven and predatory, for lack of a better term, especially in its portrayal of conservative Southerners. Religulous looks as if it will prey on a similar audience, perhaps in similar fashion. Borat wasn’t considered a documentary because its key subject is a dramatic creation of actor Sacha Baron Cohen. Religulous is considered a documentary because Bill Maher is playing himself. So my questions for you are: Is that fair? Is Religulous a “documentary” in the traditional definition of the term? Or is Religulous, along with the rest of its Moore-inspired brethren, a bastardization of the documentary genre? And if so, so what?

Fox: I think the definition of the traditional documentary itself has been bastardized. The root term "document" implies that truth, or proof, is what the viewer will be getting. Now, most viewers have come to know – especially in our "sensational documentary" era – that documentaries are just as much about a point-of-view as they are a treatment of facts. Certainly there are truths in these films, but never have I encountered a documentary where opinion or point-of-view isn’t the dominant mode. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The best thing a documentary can accomplish is to introduce the viewer to topics or information.

So: "Is Religulous a ‘documentary’ in the traditional definition of the term?" I would say no, but … so what? What we've come to think of as a documentary is anything that is a nonfictional narrative/short, and that's fine. To me, the real battle lies with taking on what I see as irresponsible filmmaking and/or manipulation of reality (which I think every documentary does). That doesn't mean I think that these manipulated films can't present enjoyable entertainment or useful information, but as an art form I think the documentary is inherently flawed because it can never truly achieve what it sets out to do. I wouldn't qualify myself as an expert of the genre, but personally I've never seen a documentary that moves beyond the quality of a well done news segment.

Borat lies somewhere between documentary and mockumentary because only half of the party is in on the joke. In fact, Borat is truly a mockumentary in that it "mocks" its subject matter. What I despise most about Sacha Baron Cohen is that he cowardly hides behind a persona when he ambushes his subjects. (He also picks mostly passive, easy targets, but that's for another conversation.) At least someone like Maher confronts his subjects in an upfront, honest manner. I will give him the credit of sitting side-by-side with his opposition.

Religulous appeals to me because I too have problems with organized religion. However, I respect a fellow citizen's personal beliefs as long as they don't encroach on my life. I could give a crap if my neighbor worships Jesus, Mohammed, Satan, or his parrots, but if that bleeds over into society in a negative way then I have a problem with it. Now, Maher seems to have a problem with religion on a large scale. Not just with the fanatics, but with people of faith in general. What I'm curious to see is who he goes after in Religulous. Just the militants? Or the militants and the peaceful believers as well? A last compliment I can give to Maher before seeing his film is that he doesn't hide his intentions. He's got a chip on his shoulder and he makes that clear. Michael Moore's films are simply propaganda. He's never been interested in trying to understand anything outside of his agenda. Will Maher take the same path? We shall see.


JB: Terrific points. Let me take this back to the beginning by noting that a couple days ago Maher and Charles were on NPR’s “Fresh Air” talking about Religulous. They did their usual shtick. Then their segment was followed by an interview with Steven Waldman, founder and editor in chief of Beliefnet, which host Terry Gross described as “the largest website devoted to religion and spirituality.” Gross asked Waldman about Religulous and he was both praiseful (“funnier” and “more challenging” than he expected) and critical (“offensive” and “slippery”). Waldman then noted that most of Maher’s film is an attack on fundamentalism, and offered that for each example Maher provides of religion having a negative societal impact he could think of many more in which religion is a positive influence. Fair enough. All of which leads Waldman to say the following: “To only look at one part of the story is not really a ‘documentary,’ as (Maher) calls it.”

Now, this observation from Waldman is similar to what you just said when you talked about the bastardization of the term “documentary.” And I’d say that the view that you and Waldman share – that documentaries are supposed to be truthful and perhaps somehow balanced – is widely shared among the movie-going public. In general, I think people equate documentaries with “truth” or “nonfiction.” But I’m wondering how we got to that definition. You said that you think every documentary manipulates reality. So how did we ever arrive at the notion that documentaries are or should be entirely truthful (which is to say void of bias or inaccuracy)?

To answer my own question: I think that the “documentaries” many of us first encountered were nature films in school. Now, even nature films can be untruthful – for Winged Migration, several scenes were staged – but in general a nature documentary shows you animals being animals, responding to their own instincts. You can’t get much more truthful than that. Thus, part of the problem, is us. We carry from childhood this notion that documentaries reflect total and complete truth, only to be offended when we spot shades of gray among the black-and-white. And so I wonder if the documentaries have actually changed (been bastardized) or if instead we’ve just wised up.

Look at it this way: When we were kids, we read our history books and encyclopedias and thought both were undeniable, inarguable truth. Then we got older and we realized (most of us, anyway) that history is written by the victors of war, that different countries have alternate views of world history, that even our own country’s version of historical “fact” has changed over the years as our social norms have changed. All of a sudden we realize that short of something like Andy Warhol’s Sleep, which is nothing more than five hours of footage of his lover sleeping, there’s very little that can be documented on film that is as accurate as it seems.

I think we have a bad habit in this country of equating consensus with truth. They aren’t always the same. For example, we all agree that the Nazis were evil, so no one would ever expect a documentary on World War II to be “fair” to Adolph Hitler or to give the Nazis “equal time.” But when Maher provides a dissenting opinion on religion, he is going to get torn apart for “ignoring” certain “truths.” Is that fair? By my definition, a documentary needs to document. Simple as that. What I object to is when documentary filmmakers stage events and pass them off as unscripted. What I object to is when someone like Moore tells you that a plaque says one thing when really it says something else. Those are lies. But as a concept I think Religulous is truthful: it’s an accurate representation of Bill Maher’s views. I’d say that’s enough to be called a documentary.


Fox: You make a really wonderful distinction that I hadn't thought of before – that's what these discussions are all about, right? – and that is that a documentary is a document of the filmmaker's personal opinion, rather than a dead honest portrait of the subject they happen to be focusing on. I can live with that. Also, you beat me to something I had been thinking about: that the only true documentary – if the definition of that is "a document; a true portrait of events” – would be a camera filming a location in some sort in real-time – uncut and unedited.

I think you're right that our perception of what a documentary is supposed to deliver may place a lot of unfair expectations on the director. On the other hand, I think it's the responsibility of the director to not act like they are an authority on a topic simply because they've made a film. Unfortunately, this is the attitude I get while watching a lot of the historical and/or political documentaries today.

To be honest, while watching older documentaries like Hearts & Minds or Winter Soldier, I got the impression that this is where that trend started. Surely, during Vietnam, it was one of the first times a generation felt openly deceived and had the media tools to express their rage, confusion and distrust. Yet, there is no doubt that Hearts & Minds and Winter Soldier come off as their maker's one-sided opinions and not as a balanced dissection of events. Surely, there is no problem with someone wanting to make such a film if that is their desire, but I fail to see it as anything more than propaganda or selfish catharsis.

Again, nothing wrong with that, but the way the critical establishment has lauded these films as highly-rated works of art bothers me. I haven't seen Ben Stein's Expelled, but it was curious to me the absolute across-the-board denunciation of that film when it sounds like it follows the same one-sided, biased set of rules as any other button-pushing documentary. I expect to dislike the film for the same reason I dislike any other agitprop, but it was telling how critics pushed that film away, seemingly for no other reason than for disagreement with their ideology and/or belief system. In a way, that reaction of theirs kind of proved my point that these films – whether it be Moore or Stein – shouldn't be taken seriously as films.

"Taken seriously as films" was the last thing I said, and that kind of leads into the much dreaded phrase I have used in the past that has started fights among loved ones (in fact, it led to the only time that my dear, sweet wife cursed at me...): "Documentary is lazy cinema." It's something I stand by, and have yet to be shaken from. Now, I don't mean that documentarians are lazy, or that the work that goes into making documentaries is less than pushing 10 boulders up a hill. What I mean is that documentaries tend to betray the aesthetic of what I feel is beautiful about cinema, and that is cinematography, framing, lighting, spatial relationships, acting, color, screenplay, set design, etc. Some documentarians, like Errol Morris, definitely bring a more artistic eye to their films (I'm thinking Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and Mr. Death, for example), but even then, someone like him is bound to limitations since they are filming "real life."

The exception to this would be Werner Herzog, but then he is probably the exception to documentaries in general. For example, I think The Wild Blue Yonder is a beautiful, wonderful film. I think what Herzog does in the few "docs" of his I've seen (I haven't seen Grizzly Man, by the way) is flip the idea of documentary. I think he knows that true documentary is impossible, so he takes real footage and implements it into his fiction. In a way I think this liberates the real footage and gives it a freedom that something like Religulous, or Why We Fight or The Weather Underground doesn't.


JB: See, I think that’s interesting: Having seen only Herzog’s recent Grizzly Man and Encounters At The End Of The World, I think he’s right in the Moore/Maher camp. Those two documentaries are very personal – not only narrated by Herzog but actually experienced through him. I don’t object to this in theory, but as a viewer sometimes I find myself wishing he’d shut up and get out of the way. Show me the footage. Give me the subject. Let me be the judge. Let me experience the story on my own.

By comparison, Morris is far more removed from his subjects (heck, he doesn’t even sit in the same room with the people he interviews). But his films are still influenced by his personal views. As the interviewer, he gets to ask the questions (not all of which we get to hear), and he gets to edit his subjects’ responses after the fact. In that way Morris can comment on the overall subject of his film without actually opening his mouth. To me, this is obvious. But I’m frequently astonished that so many people see Morris’ films as somehow more factual or unbiased than the stuff of a Moore or Maher. I’m not sure that perception is accurate.

Specifically, I remember being perplexed by the reaction to The Fog Of War, which is basically a long interview with Robert McNamara intercut with some b-roll of falling dominoes. In the interview, McNamara admits that he lied to the American people when he was U.S. Secretary of Defense amidst the war in Vietnam. Then he goes on to tell us the “truth.” But can we really trust that “truth”? McNamara was in spin mode before and he’s almost certainly spinning in his interview with Morris. This doesn’t detract from The Fog Of War as a documentary. To go back to the previous definition, The Fog Of War documents McNamara’s version of the truth in that time and place. But I don’t think there’s any deeper actual historical truth to the film than Moore’s stunt-filled antics in Bowling For Columbine. Yet I think I’d be the minority there.

And that brings us to your terrific point about Stein’s Expelled. I haven’t seen the picture either, but I suspect you are correct that critics rejected it for its ideology and ideas rather than its technique or general entertainment value. On cinematic grounds, that seems unfair. Then again, a film like Expelled (which to my understanding argues in favor of Intelligent Design) brings up an interesting conundrum: When it comes to documentaries that make an argument (Religulous, Fahrenheit 9/11, An Inconvenient Truth, etc), rather than those that more or less just observe (Spellbound, Mad Hot Ballroom, Wordplay, to name a few semi-recent ones), doesn’t an evaluation of that film need to consider the persuasiveness or soundness of that argument?

As I alluded before, I cringe at the way we so often misinterpret popular opinion as fact, because it takes us right to the core of the Stephen Colbert term “truthiness” (things we know “from the gut,” often despite evidence to the contrary). But can an argumentative documentary “succeed” if its arguments are unsound? For example: I haven’t seen that straight-to-DVD documentary that argues that 9/11 was an inside job, but the whole concept is laughable. (I mean, really: Our government, eager to go to war, decided to attack itself during daylight hours? Give me break!) Can a documentary like that succeed as art if it’s filled with ideological gibberish?

If the answer is no, that would support your idea that documentaries are “lazy cinema,” because certainly we agree that the list is long of dramatic films that are mindless, absurd or simply boring that stimulate anyway because of their visual splendor. But on the flipside of that argument there’s a documentary like King Of Kong, about a modest dad’s quest to set the points record in Donkey Kong. As documentaries go, King Of Kong is as void of artistic flourish as one could imagine. From a cinematic standpoint or even a journalistic standpoint I’d find it difficult to argue that it’s one of the 10 best documentaries I’ve seen in even the past decade. But having said that I’d be hard pressed to name 10 films (fiction or non) from the past 10 years that I’ve enjoyed more. I mean that. And yet when the film garnered praise but failed to find a mainstream audience, what did distributor (New Line) do? It signed up director Seth Gordon to adapt the documentary as a narrative feature. What the fuck!? Why? The story succeeds on its own. Efforts to enhance the story via aesthetic flourishes would only expose the emptiness of aesthetics.


Fox: To Morris first: I haven't seen his recent Standard Operating Procedure, but what I've always appreciated about him (vs. a Michael Moore, a Peter Davis, or a Eugene Jarecki) is that I feel he has a genuine respect for his subject, even though he presumptively strongly disagrees with what they represent. This is most apparent to me in Mr. Death, where Morris almost turns a Holocaust denier into a sympathetic character without sympathizing with his views. Same for The Fog of War. Morris could have given McNamara the "gotcha" treatment. Instead Morris lets him speak. Of course, there is much more of the "political" attached to The Fog of War because it is ultimately Morris trying to uncover hidden truths about the decisions that led us into and kept us in the Vietnam War. With Mr. Death, it feels more like a character study and, maybe on greater reflection, an examination of the cost of free thought and free speech (albeit, in a very extreme and controversial manner) in a free world.

So, I would say the difference between The Fog of War and Bowling For Columbine is that Morris has a respect for his subjects while, to me, Moore despises them and is unwilling to grant them an ounce of slack. I know there are those that would say, "Well, fuck them! Those people don't deserve to be given any slack! K-Mart had it coming! Heston had it coming!" I don't subscribe to that. One, I think it's a narrow-minded reaction to a narrow-mined accusation by Moore, and, two, I think it’s an example that two wrongs don't make a right.

Now, I'm glad you brought up King of Kong. I caught moments of it one night while my wife was watching it and instantly got wrapped up in the drama. Afterwards, her reaction – and the reaction of many of my friends – was similar to yours: ecstatic, tear-inducing, joyous. I'm not questioning the honesty of those emotions. What I'm skeptical of is the way in which the director (through editing) was able to take footage of real life and create a type of Hollywood story arc out of it, thus manipulating emotions as if we were watching a fictional narrative like The Karate Kid. Now, the events in Kong are true, but what about the gravity and emotional pull of those events? Would you have felt as sympathetic towards Steve Wiebe and as bitter towards Billy Mitchell if director Seth Gordon hadn’t framed the two men to come off that way? Not to mention, all of this is crammed into 79 minutes! And here is where we really get at the heart of my problem with documentaries. Ethically, I have a major problem with taking real-life footage and making popcorn entertainment out of it. Is Billy Mitchell really a cocky S.O.B.? Maybe... probably... who knows? Regardless, he will now go down as a bad guy in the eyes of people who watch this film. I think that's unfair, and I think it is a major negative of documentaries.

Take Tarnation, a movie I might hate more than any other that's come out in the 00s. Director/camera whore/exhibitionist (forgive me, my hate is coming out!) Jonathan Caouette practically crucifies his grandfather and grandmother on film for the rest of history to judge. The deal is done. They did not get chance to defend themselves because they were so old and senile that they weren't even aware what Caouette was doing. He set up flesh-and-blood grandparents like sitting ducks and attacked them with a camera. Further, Tarnation is 100 minutes long. It's supposed to be about the entirety of Caouette's life, merging old video footage he recorded as a child in Houston up with footage he took of himself as an adult living in New York. So, basically, we have a life compressed into 100 minutes. A life that many critics and fans fawned over and adored and felt sympathy for... in 100 minutes! This drives me nuts.

And to bring that around to the beginning of this entry you might say, "Well, Morris evoked sympathy for Fred Leucther by editing and twisting time?" Yep, and that's why I think documentaries are inherently flawed, and it's why I think fictional narrative filmmaking will always be superior because it automatically excludes itself from distorting reality for the sake of entertaining an audience (and to the detriment of it's subjects). I might think Morris’ film is a more respectable method of distortion, but it's still distortion.


JB: Those are interesting arguments. To put it in a nutshell, you think that since the majority of documentaries can’t completely and accurately portray truth (the truth of their subject matter; the ‘whole story’), and since many documentaries don’t even strive for such depth, that dramatic films are in essence more honest because they aren’t striving for truth in the first place. Is that about right? From that standpoint, I see the “inherent flaw.” But this goes back to the idea that documentaries must achieve perfect truth to be truthful. I don’t think they do. Think of it this way: Beethoven is going to sound different whether it’s played by your local symphony orchestra or mine. But it’s still Beethoven. Whether abridged or imperfect, it has the same core truth.

To go back to King Of Kong, does it have an entertainment agenda? Absolutely. But so what? (Billy Mitchell claims he’s unfairly represented, but watching the film it’s pretty clear that Mitchell hangs himself, even if it was Gordon who tied the noose.) Meanwhile, though I agree that Morris’ films feel as if he approaches his subjects with sympathy and an open mind, we can’t be sure. Perhaps he is just as manipulative and merely better at hiding it.

In the end, no documentary or other form of journalism can cover every facet of any complex subject. But I don’t think that means these stories are inaccurate or even incomplete. Imperfect, sure – despite best intentions, in many cases. But these “nonfiction” stories can still deliver the underlying truth, which is what we’re after. I feel like all we should expect from a documentary filmmaker is an honest effort. Then it’s on the audience to be just as open in our approach.

On that last point, something that gets under my skin is when opponents of a documentary’s ideals dismiss it as “propaganda.” Depending on the definition you choose, just about any film is propaganda (information distributed to advance an idea). The dangerous kind of propaganda is deliberate misinformation. There’s a huge chasm between the two. But when someone hears, “That’s propaganda!” they imagine the second, worst definition. Yet the reality is that most of us swallow whole the propaganda that supports our ideals, whether it comes from advertisers or politicians or movies. We don’t even think about it. We just accept because we agree. It has “truthiness.” Sure, it might have more than that. But often our critical filter takes a backseat to our emotions.

As a lover of journalism, who thinks that good, researched journalism is becoming ever more difficult to find (what with the slow death of newspapers and the deterioration of television news due to the demands of the 24/7 news cycle, etc), I’ve been thrilled by the recent documentary boom, made possible by cheaper equipment, the growth of documentary-friendly theaters and the ever widening of alternate distribution platforms (DVD, YouTube, etc). Once a year, I watch Ken Burns’ terrific Civil War, and I appreciate that kind of long-form documentary filmmaking. I don’t want to see that disappear. But No End In Sight – a film that covers recent and still evolving history – includes the kind of reportage that only PBS’ Frontline tends to provide. Some have criticized such films by saying that they feel like something you’d see on 60 Minutes. True, to a point. And false, as well. It gives 60 Minutes too much credit.

I think the core difference between the two of us in how we approach to documentaries is that I’m thrilled by more, smaller and different, while you seem to see the documentary boom as filled with fluff that gets away from bigger, deeper and more profound documentaries of the past. I’m excited by the documentary boom while you are filled with reservations. Is that fair?

We could easily ramble on this subject for days. So let me try and bring toward some sort of close by asking you this question: We’ve talked a lot about the documentaries you don’t admire. What are the documentaries that best fulfill your idea of what a documentary should be? As a fan of cinema, which films typify the strengths of the documentary genre?


Fox: That brings us back to my comment that documentaries are inherently flawed cinema. If we agree that film is a visual art form, then a film’s primary concern should be the image, whether the film is The House Bunny or The Conformist. But I can’t think of many documentaries that strive for that. To me, the primary focus of a documentary is the information, the statistics, the reporting, etc. Sure, documentaries can be visually breath-taking and can use imagery to enhance the meaning of the information and give it further power. But I think that imagery is a secondary concern of documentarians, whereas in the narrative film the director, production designer, cinematographer, actors, etc., all collaborate to create controlled, thought-out visuals. Also, a documentary is made by significantly whittling away at the shot footage (perhaps 400 hours for a 90-minute film), whereas a fictional film is built up from nothing, using only the pieces it needs (with some editing room exceptions, of course). Artistically, I think these approaches are miles apart, and I prefer the one that is more concerned with image – the foundation of what is truly cinema.

So when I think of documentaries I admire, the first films I think of are musical performances. (Do those count? Musical docs feel more like recorded performances than traditional docs.) There are exceptions, but the ones that mean the most to me are ones where the director achieves a loving recording of the musician by getting out of the way and letting the camera set-ups say everything. With that lead-in, Stop Making Sense and Neil Young: Heart of Gold are two of my favorite nonfiction films – both by Jonathan Demme. I love that guy. I would also like to mention two nonfiction films by Werner Herzog: Lessons of Darkness and The Wild Blue Yonder. Though, I don't consider these traditional docs either since they make fiction out of real-life footage.

Other more traditional favorite documentaries would include: The Outsider (Nick Jarecki); My Country, My Country (Laura Poitras); Hearts Of Darkness (George Hickenlooper); Gunner Palace (Michael Tucker); Inside Deep Throat (Fenton Bailey); Not Quite Hollywood (Mark Hartley); Night & Fog (Alain Resnais). How about you?

JB: I’ve admired several documentaries in recent years: No End In Sight and Taxi To The Dark Side, for exploring stories that our traditional media has been too timid to handle with such straightforwardness. I’ve enjoyed examinations of the quirky, like the aforementioned Wordplay and King Of Kong. I’m still haunted by Capturing The Friedmans. I think Murderball is one of the best films of the past five years not because of the characters most people remember (the gladiators in wheelchairs) but because of the one most forget (the recent quadriplegic coming to grips with his new reality). Stringing it back a ways: I’ve seen When We Were Kings at least a dozen times, and I never tire of it. Like you, I admire Hearts Of Darkness, which I find more fascinating than the film it chronicles (Apocalypse Now). And though it can’t be watched in one sitting, I love how the split-screen approach to Woodstock evokes the event and the era it covers. These are off the top of my head, and I’ve already thought of glaring omissions. But I’ll settle it there.

I respect the observation that documentaries have typically been fact-based and have evolved beyond that in recent years, sometimes for the worse. I cringe at the thought of documentaries resembling “reality TV,” complete with professional writers. Yet at the same time I am excited by the knowledge that documentaries are gaining access to audiences and thus are increasing in number. I’d like to think that the marketplace will force a balance, but I’m aware that the “reality TV” movement demonstrates that honesty, integrity and truth are often obstacles to commercial success. Where the documentary genre will go next, we’ll have to wait and see. But clearly it’s going there with a full head of steam. In a year in which smallish documentaries like Man On Wire, Standard Operating Procedure and Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired have been endlessly more fascinating than bigger-budget busts like Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, The Happening and Appaloosa, I’m happy about that.

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Special thanks to Fox for taking part in this exchange. Comments for either of us are welcome below. If you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and add Tractor Facts to your list of daily blog visits. You won’t be disappointed.

Marathoning Through Movies

Yesterday morning, just before 8 am, I stood packed shoulder-to-shoulder with nearly 30,000 others. Some of us laughed. Some cheered. Some made idle conversation. Some twitched nervously. It was like the moment in Gladiator just before Maximus and his fellow rookie fighters enter the arena for the first time: for all those wearing looks of stone-cold determination, there were others just trying to keep from peeing themselves.

This was the start of the Marine Corps Marathon, the 33rd running of the race that begins near Arlington Cemetery in Virginia and snakes through Georgetown and the National Mall in Washington, DC, before ending back in Virginia at the Marine Corps Memorial (often mistakenly called the Iwo Jima Memorial). I was about to run 26.2 miles – for the first time in my life. An on-and-off recreational runner the past four years, I’d spent the past 18 weeks following a regimented running plan designed to have me ready to go the distance on race day. Now it was time to test myself.

I was excited and nervous. The longest single run in my training was 22 miles. The last 4.2 would be uncharted territory. I knew I could and (barring injury) would finish, but how well? How fast? How strong? Throughout training, I imagined that finishing a marathon would provide me with a crazed thrill of success akin to that exhibited by Peter O’Toole’s Lawrence when finally storming Akaba after days suffering across the “sun’s anvil” in Lawrence Of Arabia. But did it? What follows is my marathon experience through movies …

Starting Line: Runners are packed on a highway according to time of expected finish. My main goal is to run the marathon in under 3:45, but I’m shooting to run it in just under 3:30 – roughly an 8-minute mile average. That puts me in the first third of the competitors. Behind me, the phalanx of runners stretches as far as the eye can see. I’d say the crowd resembles shots from recent battle epics like Alexander or Kingdom Of Heaven, but the key difference is that we’re all real. No special effects here. Alas, no stunt doubles either.

Mile 1: Climbing through Rosslyn, the course takes us near the parking garage where the real Bob Woodward had secret night meetings with Deep Throat. The proximity is enough to make any relatively sane movie fan ask: “Why am I doing this instead of sitting at home and watching All The President’s Men?” It’s a question that has no good answer.

Miles 2-3: These pass with the blur of an action sequence in one of the Paul Greengrass-directed Jason Bourne movies. Approaching the fourth mile, I’m not quite sure what has happened or how it’s happened. I only know I’m here.

Mile 4: For me, this is the 2001: A Space Odyssey checkpoint: Thus far there’s been primitive grunting, and 30 minutes have gone by, but in the grand scheme of things we’re just getting started.

Mile 5: I cross into Washington, DC, via Key Bridge, which is shrouded in a misty fog that reminds me of the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo tiptoes out of the Millennium Falcon to explore what turns out to be the innards of a giant space slug. It hits me that when Han was done doing that, he got to make out with Princess Leia. When I’m done with the fifth mile, I get to run 21.2 more. Advantage: Han.

Mile 7: The mist remains thick over a tree-lined street during an uphill climb toward the sun. Ahead of me, I see nothing but the silhouettes of runners bobbing and swaying in eerie beauty against the morning glow. If Terrence Malick and The New World cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki teamed up to make a running film, they’d be all over this shot. I take a mental picture to savor it.

Mile 9: Looping back into Georgetown, below the campus of the university, we’re not far from multiple shooting locations for The Exorcist. With only about 70 minutes invested on the course, I’m feeling great. But I wonder: Will hitting the inevitable wall feel like taking a Father Karras header down the stairs? Will there be Regan-esque projectile vomiting at some point? Will cramping cause me to have to spider-walk toward the finish line? We’ll see.

Mile 13: If you started watching Titanic when I crossed the starting line, you just saw the ship crash into the iceberg. The movie is just over halfway through. In terms of mileage, I’m not quite to the race’s midpoint yet. Wow.

Mile 18: Have you ever tried to drink from a paper cup while running? It’s an art form, and I’m only mildly proficient at it. Some runners elect to walk through the water stations, but I like to keep moving, for fear that if I stop I won’t be able to start again. Until the water station at the 17.5-mile mark, I’ve consumed fluids flawlessly. This time, though, with fatigue setting in, I get stuck between a breath and a gulp and have water go down the wrong pipe. It occurs to me that this has to be how Walter Donovan felt when he chose poorly and drank out of the wrong chalice at the end of Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. Thankfully, my face doesn’t wither into sand.

Mile 19: I’m more than 2 minutes under my dream goal pace of 3:30, but I’m starting to get fatigued. I’ve been running for about 2.5 hours, which is kind of sadistic. And, keep in mind, I’ve paid to do this! Still, give me the choice between running 18 miles or watching Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, and I’ll take the 18-mile run any day. Priorities reassessed, I push onward.

Mile 20: In terms of effort, experienced runners say that the 20-mile mark is the halfway point. In a nutshell, the human body is built to run up to that distance. After that, you’re in survival mode. Fittingly, as I battle into my 21st mile, Titanic-watchers are seeing the stern of the ship bobbing like a cork. It’s about to go under. Am I?

Miles 21-22: The race starts to resemble Groundhog Day. A mile ago, it felt like things were heading toward a conclusion. Now, it’s as if it will never end. Mile after painful mile. Not aiding my enthusiasm is a woman near the 22-mile mark who, having obviously never run a marathon, yells out the dreaded, “You’re almost there!” I glare at her like Bill Murray’s Phil Conners sizing up Stephen Tobolowsky’s Ned Ryerson.

Mile 23: Approaching and pushing through the 23rd mile, it’s all pain and no pleasure. Round about the time I reach the 23.5-mile mark, Titanic is over and I’m wishing the race was, too. The only thing more ghastly than the thought of the upcoming miles is the thought of ever watching The Happening again. Along the course, a band plays the “Gonna Fly Now” theme from Rocky. At this point my stride has less in common with Rocky’s famous race up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, and more closely resembles his awkward ice skating with Adrian.

Mile 24: I have my Austin Powers moment. For a good 18 miles everything was groovy, baby. But not long after that I lost my mojo. And right about now I feel like I’m carrying Fat Bastard on my back. With 2 miles left, I’m still on 3:30 pace, but I’m fading fast. It occurs to me that my initial vision for the conclusion of the race was at least half right. To reach Akaba, I’m going to have to suffer through the sun’s anvil. But I’ve got no energy for a triumphant charge. I’m on damage control.

Mile 26: Want to know the difference between how a marathoner feels in the first mile of a race vs. the last? For the first, think of Charlize Theron stretched out in all her naked beauty in The Cider House Rules. Then think of Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuoronos in Monster. Got it? I’m pretty sure I resemble the latter. I’m slower than The Postman. I’m as tired as Robin Williams. And my attempt to reach the starting line in 3:30 is now as hopeless as George Lucas. But I’m at peace with that. With 2 miles to go I had a coin-flip’s chance at reaching my ultimate time goal, and I lost. Oh well. The final miles of a marathon are as ruthless as Anton Chigurh. No shame there.

Finish Line: Fighting for every inch, I end the race in 3:35.11. The feeling of crossing the finish line offers none of the glory of storming Akaba. Instead, it’s closer to Andy Dufresne’s crawl-through-a-sewage-pipe prison-break in The Shawshank Redemption. I’m elated, proud and glad that it’s over, yet I’m immediately distracted by the stench of those final shitty miles. The good news is that the shit quickly washes off. The achievement is forever.

It was all worth it. Fade out.